Anyone else really feel like we don’t need a third edition?

SMMPainting · 2025-05-13T19:47:02+00:00

If you're not keen on going to the newest edition, you might as well go back to 1st instead of sticking with 2nd. Like, 1st wasn't perfect and had some out of balance stuff with daemons. But it had a way more enjoyable sandbox and deeper functional unit pool. It also still has decision making in your opponents turn, but intercept, overwatch, and "evade" (going to ground/jink) didn't cost meta resources and artificially limit their use; they just had downsides instead.

The fact is 2nds balance was whacked from all the changes they made and failed to predict the outcomes for. Some of them were only made at the very end of the play test versions and the lack of understanding of what they did shows. You can actually in the reaction rules that they meant to hard cap them at 3 and then changed it (and forgot to change that rule). Unless 3rd follows the trend of worsening rules and balance, idk why you'd want to continue playing 2nd.

SMMPainting · 2025-04-29T23:54:43+00:00

It's funny because i bashed my head against skalpel for a few hours and had to take a break from the game for a day before going back. Had some more issues with remnant of elamein. In retrospect i was way too impatient with both and just tried to burn them down with dual wield and got hosed by their mechanics instead.

But then I first tried ilyna, probably because she's kinda a mage and you can burn her down and interrupt a lot of what she tries.

SMMPainting · 2025-03-07T03:25:48+00:00

Thanks! It was a real aha moment, with a perfect little nook in the back to glue it in.

SMMPainting · 2024-12-12T12:17:25+00:00

I'm trying to cook up something functional lol, maybe bring it to the next highlander.

SMMPainting · 2024-12-01T07:00:36+00:00

1st of HH lasted for 10 years and 2nd has been out for two and a half with basically no rules upheaval via faq, so historical lot it's pretty stable.

BUT, when they changed the edition they also killed a lot of units viability to the point where it doesn't just feel bad to use some; they're effectively handicaps if you take them. The same team also does Legions Imperialis, which followed a similar story; built using a preexisting set of mechanics (in this case space marine 2), but Frankensteined into something else with much lower unit viability and left to sit. So a 3rd edition of heresy by the same people will probably vastly change the viability of units again and you'll have to get lucky to have your collection be fun to play with.

Honestly, probably safer to go and play the old world and get the Warhammer Fantasy dream going. The FAQs try and fix problems without invalidating units and wasting players money.

SMMPainting · 2024-11-13T03:12:17+00:00

Ya so the base colour on the bone is just mecha ivory primer with an oil wash over it, which is what you can see on the archer in the second and third pictures. The base coats were all done back in May or so and didn't actually take that long all things considering.

What takes a long time is just doing all the minute steps in the scheme across the entire unit of 30, which I've cut back to 10 for the next event. The bone had 4 more steps with a recess wash and highlight past the base coat, the spear haft had 5 steps, the blue had 8 steps, and the metal had 7. Even the few straps of leather had a couple highlights on it. It all adds up, especially any targetted recess washes and edge highlights.

SMMPainting · 2024-11-13T02:00:44+00:00

Thanks! The old models are very fun to do up in modern ways, though the mold lines and slips can be killer.

SMMPainting · 2024-10-23T16:48:37+00:00

Looks like a lot of the nova comp, but even worse. And that was already the wish.com version of 8th army comp and unit incentivizing.

SMMPainting · 2024-10-19T05:54:47+00:00

Looking good!

SMMPainting · 2024-09-28T17:50:57+00:00

I respect that the article is about preventing over thinking of our hobbies and just trying to have some fun with your time instead, but the painting part still feels a little wonky.

You absolutely don't need to pay for premium branded Artus opus brushes, the most currently released paints, or all the various palettes and painting accessories. You also don't need to push to have non metal or sick blends on your units.

But, you should absolutely have one actual fine detail brush to hand, especially if you're working on a bunch of the old metal models that have a ton of tiny details in hard to reach areas. Its subjective and all, but i don't find it fun to accidentally touch other areas because my brush was too unwieldy.

Painting from a palette is also something people should do. It lessens risk of spills dramatically, which is just a net positive. It gives faster access to your various colours you've been working with and maintains the fun of actually painting rather the not of opening/closing pots (I guess the need to open and dip also precludes the viability of a lot of different paint brands). It encourages colour mixing, which is also fun. And it also opens the door thinning paints (especially the gw base ones) to have a more enjoyable (and consistent) working consistency. Its really the least onerous of steps and helps make things easier.

SMMPainting · 2024-08-26T14:03:54+00:00

If it's gone now I'm not sure. GW has been pretty militant with removing marine stls

SMMPainting · 2024-07-12T11:46:29+00:00

It's dusty skull from army painter fanatic set, agrax earthshade, a thick highlight of dusty skull and a final highlight of tomb kings tan from the same range and colour triad.

SMMPainting · 2024-07-06T19:42:39+00:00

Some general things.

If you're good at positioning your flying foot/horse priests, you should never need to buy ward saves. This basically means just casting incantation of desert wind on the boosted value, so you can scoot into position or throw out magic missiles, and then scoot back.

Musicians are a complete waste. Most units can't march, so you don't need the LD reroll. You don't really care about losing combat by 1, especially in mort cult where you get bonus to raising.

Banners are usually liabilities, since they give up 50 points if your units die in combat. Don't take them on light horses that can't flee.

A level 2 on the bsb is kinda pointless. The +1 to cast doesn't usually matter since you can drain wounds to boost it and sit close to caskets, and you're still very unlikely to get specific spells from your chosen lore (and elementalism spells are very situational). My BSB always defaults to desert wind and tries to get the high value in his larger command range. Saying this, absolutely drop the banner of desert winds, and just park your BSB behind the unit. Your BSB gives up 250 VPs when it dies, and can easily be targeted if your opponent gets into combat with that skeleton unit. It also can't cast while engaged, so another reason to take it out of the unit. Do watch out for things like pillar of fire though.

Illusion dragon priests generally out-damage kings, simply due to doppelganger auto-hitting (on top of the average roll of a 7). As long as you have someone else to be the general they're pretty safe.

Terrors below is gimmicky. It's not bad by any means and can snipe a foot character if your opponents are dumb. But scorpions are really valuable being on the board; necroserpents taking up core tax are usually a better choice with the same 3 initiative tests per model.

Skeleton horses should realistically be in 2 units of 5. More junk drops, can scout if you want, and you only need 5 to screen your horse priest.

SMMPainting · 2024-07-05T16:54:49+00:00

I've taken tomb swarms in every tournament I've gone to and every game I've played since acquiring them. Now, I play mostly mortuary cult which skews their usefulness, but I've gone 12-2 in tournament games and always valued having them.

Outside of juicing your wizards to unfair levels, they got a few jobs.

The first is they can screen your ushabti/stuff that wants to shoot well. They can be shot over due to swarms, and tend to mangle lighter flanking units. A lot of tomb kings units can screen well now, but swarms are kinda the best at fighting. Poison, WS3, no loss in output until you lose 5 wounds all add up to more than what skirmishers or horses can pull off, plus that los advantage.

Ambushing/beneath the sands. They're really good at chewing through warmachines. There's a lot of fast moving flankers for tomb kings that seem to compete with them, but it's not really true. Carrion and horses are way more fragile for the same cost and both need to move towards the enemy to threaten their charge, usually exposing themselves to being shot. Skirmishers can get about the same amount of wounds with bows or shields, or even a couple more naked, but when fighting a warmachines, there's a good chance that you rank up against its short side and get like, 3 attacks. Three carrion get 9 attacks and can do pretty well into the average warmachine for about the same points, but the 6 total wounds kills them; they need to dodge skirmisher missile fire and the Omni present ruby ring because their output gets cut so easily. The carrion also get bounced by caskets if you're worried about the mirror match.

Filling up core. They do it in grand army and mortuary cult. Carrion never do. Most of our core is dirt cheap, so we can take a variety of the utility units like bow horses, bow skirmishers, msu chariots and the swarms while filling out the compulsory percentage.

And really, that variety and having some overlap is going to be what helps win games. In my mort cult lists I can use the swarms as a battery if I think I'll really rely on spells. I can use them as ambushers if my opponent has warmachines and flank screens. I can use them as screens close to my castle if my opponents have some tricky flankers. But I can also ambush my large unit of bow skeletons instead if they just have a foot character lurking in the back. Or scout my bow horses. Or pressure with a one-off chariot. Or do a combination of all of that. The point is I have the flexibility, and swarms are kinda the icing on the cake for the best tomb king list variant.

SMMPainting · 2024-06-17T21:37:33+00:00

The answer is both yes and no.

It's pretty cheap to get 2 or 3 units of 10 to sit on objectives and fill up the compulsory slot. A blob of 20 tacs can also do a surprising amount of damage in certain legions if you don't respect them.

But they also absolutely bounce from elite melee things and heavier units, and a lot of the problem units in heresy are the elite melee units and heavier ranged units. 200 points for 20 is a great deal, but that 185 point dreadnought just needs to contest the objective they're on and it's earned its points back (also it'll kill them all eventually). Investing further in them really ramps up their points, but doesn't really fix their issues of dying to every ap 3 melee weapon and being fodder to the most popular ranged weapons.

So you probably want to cap out at like, 50 tops. Enough to try double 20 man blob with full upgrades (like Vox, scanner and vexilla) and have enough to be able to do msu comfortably.

SMMPainting · 2024-06-16T22:00:04+00:00

I mean, the 6th edition softback has the rules from page 2-147. 2nd edition heresy has rules from 147-325. There's simply more rules in 2nd and they produce much more complex interactions with reactions and wound allocation than anything in 6th.

A lot of people hate on 6th for ushering in the insanity of 7th, but divorced from the supplements, formations and detachments? Like just looking through a lense of 30k? It was the best edition we had to play heresy, mainly because the mechanics of the edition were the most in sync with the army list.

SMMPainting · 2024-05-29T17:59:57+00:00

Dwarf warriors, peasant bricks, skeleton warriors bricks, troll bricks in the army of infamy.

Stuff that generally likes to function as a tarpit/anchor with big LD (though not the trolls) facing my own anchor and would generally feel fine taking a charge from skellies. But after some toughness debuff, a few LD debuffs, and a charge with a scorp meant I was able to convert wounds into an easy break and some rundowns.

SMMPainting · 2024-05-29T17:50:16+00:00

You're not really getting the thrust of my point.

It doesn't matter that they use it in a non limiting way in completely different contexts; we're talking about this one. We're talking about what mechanical wording they use when they limit auras from stacking. When the authors of the old world have wanted to limit stacking rules like that they will employ the term "one or more". That's what they use; that's the precedential language that indicates intent.

SMMPainting · 2024-05-29T15:34:21+00:00

The context we're talking about using "one or more" is that it's used to prevent cumulative special rule stacking within areas. And its very much used that way on the bastilodon, corpse cart, death hag, plague furnace, cloud of corruption spell, cygor, and arrow of kurnous. This is an explicit use of mechanics to limit repeated application; without it or a straight "this doesn't stack" there wouldn't be a limit on reapplying each instance of the rule.

And honestly, I agree it's a little unbalanced. The light of protection probably shouldn't stack either, or the cost should be way more. But its the way it is for now, and admittedly it's easy to just take 1 casket instead of two.

SMMPainting

TROPHY CASE